Listen to Music Made by Trees (Literally) in “Years”

It turns out that trees have composed quite a bit of music, it just takes time before they feel confident enough to release it. YEARS, in fact. The results of this project, conceived by Bartholomäus Traubeck, are at first a bit difficult to square with the visuals; I was convinced for half of the video that he’d simply put a precomposed soundtrack on top of some overly dramatic shots of a piece of wood on a record player. In fact, the dissonant sounds are generated right from the patterns of the tree’s rings. In the comments, Traubeck discusses at length the different sounds gained from different kinds of wood. If you’re really into it, you can download an album of wood-generated sounds on his bandcamp.